GPRS, Palm, PocketPC are some of the technologies which open up the world of the mobile terminals with new applications. The reduction of purchase costs and, above all, of communication costs allows us to use these technologies that in the past were abandoned for enconomic reasons.

The choice of an embedded technology is above all that of an operating system. Today that selection is reduced primarily to WindowsCE, PalmOS and Symbian. The technical bookshops offered by these various operating systems are impressive, and a solution probably exists for your particular need. However, it is still very useful to validate the architectural choice, based on the theoretical merits of a solution, by creating a validating prototype. It is difficult to choose an architecture without having an idea of the durability of its developments. The respect the editors have for your existing setup is difficult to estimate when you have never managed a migration.

A range of terminals exists for each type of operating system. Even if your initial choice is guided by the terminals available, it will be the choice of the operating system that affect you most when you first renew your park.

If you don't want to choose a particular operating system, perhaps SUN's J2ME(Java Micro edition) is a solution better adapted to your problems. Then the question is, are all the operating systems terminals J2ME compatible and under what conditions? What real portability does J2ME offer from one telephone to another? Or from a telephone to a personal assistant (PDA)? Does the J2ME environment allow the development of iMode applications? Java on a PC generally uses more resources than native developments. Is this true for J2ME in the context of your applications? There are so many questions which require precise technical expertise in this new field.

Finally, the world of the mobile applications also allows you to implement "lightweight customer" distributed applications modeled like those of Internet/intranet solutions. Implementing lightweight "multiterminal" applications is not just an illusion, and all kinds of devices can be considered: telephone, personal assistant, traditional PC station, vocal platform, television set, etc. But for that, it is necessary to choose a strong architecture, to know to manage the various diffusion formats, to minimize the development costs, and to introduce the new terminals with minimal impact.

SOFTEAM, with its wide experience in the profession, can help you solve these problems through its Consulting, Training, Development and Products Services